Join Zeigler's December Strength Training Health Challenge|EP148

Athletic Mentors, Coach Jess joins the podcast this week to discuss December's health challenge at the Zeigler Auto Group.  Join us this month in exercising and moving toward optimum health!

Episode Transcript

Ariah Daniels (00:05):
Anything worth having is a little challenging
in the beginning, but the morethat you do it, the easier it
gets.

Sam D'Arc (00:16):
Welcome everyone to the driving vision podcast
brought to you by the ZiglerAuto Group. I'm your host, Sam
Dark. Be sure to subscribe tothe podcast. Like it if you do,
and leave a comment. Coming upthis episode, join coach Jess as
we launch December's healthchallenge and reveal winners of
November's contest.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcomeeverybody to this month's health

(00:38):
challenge kickoff here withcoach Jess and Araya. We're
super pumped to be back tocelebrate the winners of last
month, month of November, and tolook ahead to December, and,
kick off the new contest for themonth of December. So, Araya,
let's go to you first. What dowe got for last month's winners?

Ariah Daniels (00:55):
Yeah. Thanks, Sam. So last month, we did a
challenge called mindful minuteswhere we were cognizant to log
our minutes for anything that wedid to slow us down. So yoga,
meditation, I can't remember ifit was reading also included in
that, but just anything thathelped us just slow down going
into the holidays and beingmindful about doing so. So for

(01:20):
our leaderboard, if we pop thatup in 10th oh, 9th place, we had
Dustin Cook with 11 minutes.
I'm sure he did a little bitmore than that. He was in the
gym quite a bit. 8th place,Orlando Lowery. 7th, Chris
Carroll. I was in 6th, with 50minutes.
I probably did a few more that Ididn't log as well. In 5th

(01:43):
place, Dawn Binkowski with a 108minutes, Shelley Taylor in 4th.
In 3rd place, Troy Kennedy with220, and then Jess, coach Jess
here in 2nd place with 290,which is awesome. So always
great to see our fearless leaderat the top of the leaderboard
there in competition. And thenin 1st place with just an

(02:05):
astounding great number and onewho I know has been featured as
a health hero this year and hasmade a lot of really great
strides in his own health,Nathan Krasnow from our Subaru
of Schererville store with 900Mindful Minutes.
So excited to celebrate Nathanand all of his accomplishments
that he had, this year. And Iknow he had a little bit of

(02:26):
weight loss as well, which isreally cool. So, yeah. Awesome.
Great challenge just to helpbring us back to being mindful
as we head into the holidays andjust as fast paced as everything
can be.
You know, our mental health isis huge and being able to just
slow down. So that was a greatgreat challenge for November and
fun to see some participationthere.

Jess Polnasek (02:48):
We also did, do diamond drops for bonus points.
So November, gratitude,thankfulness, all of those and I
did wanna point out that acouple people did those. I know
Troy Kennedy did about 5 diamonddrops.

Ariah Daniels (03:03):
So Yes.

Jess Polnasek (03:04):
Yes. That was fun to see too.

Sam D'Arc (03:06):
Alright. Well, so November is out of the way.
Thanksgiving is out of the way,and we're on to, the holidays in
December. What are we doing inDecember, Jess?

Jess Polnasek (03:16):
Well, I'm super excited about this one. So we
are doing strength trainingminutes. So you'll log 1 minute
for each minute that youstrength train. So this can be
body weight. This can be freeweights, dumbbells, resistance
bands.
I've been asked already, can itinclude exercises that are using
weights in a in a HIIT class orsomething like that, and that's

(03:39):
totally fine. So super excitedabout this one. I know I've
talked to a lot of people who wetry and push strength towards
those winter months where it'scolder, where exercise comes
indoors. So super beneficial,especially as we age. If you
don't have a strength trainingprogram in place, we can help
you with that too.
We have beginner plans,intermediate, advanced, workout

(04:03):
for weight loss plans. There'stons of things that are
available to all of theemployees.

Sam D'Arc (04:08):
Every minute. Right?

Ariah Daniels (04:10):
Yep. One point for every minute tracked. And I
think a good note here to just,to throw out to everyone, I
think it's always reallyimportant, is sometimes people
have a fear of lifting weightsand maybe it causing them to get
bulky. I know as a female that'ssometimes a fear, but that is
really far from the truth. Ialways tell people that cardio
is where you kind of build yourheart health and strength is

(04:32):
where you help build muscle.
Right? So, that will carry youinto, having a great longevity
of life and being able to bestrong over skinny is what I
say. So, if you don't know whereto start or you don't know how
to start and picking up someweights, Coach Jess I know can
help you out with that and get aplan and and easily show you
some really great easy strengthtraining workouts to get

(04:54):
started. So excited for thismonth.

Sam D'Arc (04:57):
Coach Jess, it's snowing outside right now. It's
snowing massively. Does snowshoveling count as strength
training? It almost should.Right?
There's actually case studieswhere people don't, like,
actually have major catastrophicphysical failures over, snow
shoveling.

Jess Polnasek (05:13):
I would have to I mean, I would kinda have to say
yes because I just shoveled thesidewalk here at work, and it
was not easy.

Sam D'Arc (05:21):
No. No. We are in a winter deluge right now. I mean,
I can't see blue sky, and, it iscrazy. This winter is gonna be a
heck of a lot of fun.
Just tell us as we get into thewinter, we get into kinda some
of the darker time. Like,sometimes it feels tougher to
get up in the morning to go workout and or after work. It's dark
on both sides of work nowadays.Right? What are some tips in the

(05:44):
holiday seasons to get yourselfup and running to do the
strength training, to do thislifting, to compete in this
contest, to stay healthy eventhrough the holidays, even
though it's dark outside andit's snowing and it's cold?

Jess Polnasek (05:55):
I mean, the biggest thing for me is it's not
gonna get done if it's not in mycalendar, if it's not in my
schedule. So Yeah. That's thefirst thing I do. You know,
every Sunday, I plan out, youknow, all my meetings and
everything for the week just asI'm sure everyone else does, but
then look for those gaps thatyou can fit something in. If you
are not one to get up early,maybe it's 20 minutes at

(06:17):
lunchtime or, you know, maybeit's 3 increments where you're
getting 10 minutes of somethingin or a quick, you know, 6
minute Tabata.
I mean, there's lots ofdifferent things that you can
incorporate and something'salways better than nothing.

Sam D'Arc (06:31):
That's good tips. Or, Araya, you're someone that is
very consistent every single dayand you share that.

Ariah Daniels (06:36):
Yeah. So I think one of the big things for me is
I never used to be a morningperson. And so I look back now
when I had just decided tostart. And I think that's always
the biggest struggle is, like,just choosing to start. And so
when you start, it's it's verydifficult in the beginning, and
anything worth having is alittle challenging in the
beginning.
But the more that you do it, theeasier it gets. And I think

(06:57):
that's always a really importantpiece. And especially moving
into the new year, if you canget a head start on some of your
goals moving into 2020 5, like,why not start now? So always a
big, big, big believer in that.And leaning on a support group,
maybe you have an accountabilityperson or someone that, can help
help you go to the gym with youand be a partner.

(07:17):
Just that support I think isalways really beneficial and
finding someone that you can doit with. So, those would be my
my tips and it's just a matterof starting like start now.

Jess Polnasek (07:26):
The other thing that you could do too and I've
talked a lot about this is habitstacking. So those habits that
you already have, you know,whether it's brushing your teeth
in the morning, you can add, youknow, add 5 squats while you're
brushing your teeth. Somethingso simple, but that's how you
start creating those habits.

Sam D'Arc (07:43):
Yes. Oh my goodness. I can only imagine, I have this
imagery of squat and brush,squat and brush. It doesn't seem
right, Jess. Is this somethingyou do in your own world, or is
this just a random off the topof your head idea?

Jess Polnasek (07:57):
No. I do I do do crazy things like that.

Sam D'Arc (08:00):
That's awesome. That's cool. Alright. I gotta
think about that because I thereare routines we go through every
single day, and if we simply addanother thing to that existing
routine, it would secure bothexisting and new. That's
fascinating.
I just gotta try to lookridiculous doing that. Love it.
Now, Ryah, any thoughts on It's

Ariah Daniels (08:16):
pretty quick to make excuses for things too.
Like, we don't have enough time.That's usually the big one I
hear people say. Well, you'vegotta make time. Right?
Like, just as you scheduleanything else, like Jess is
saying, you've gotta schedulethe time for yourself to get it
in and be healthy. So I thinkthat's such an important piece
is your schedule is not gonnaallow the time. You've gotta go
make the time and put it intoyour schedule. So always a great

(08:39):
one to remember.

Sam D'Arc (08:40):
Great feedback. Alright. And it's a great time
to remember this as we gothrough the stress and strain of
closing out the year. We talkedyesterday on our sales, kickoff
call with Aaron Ziegler theimportance of finishing strong.
And we all know that when we'rehealthy, when we're vibrant,
when we're active, we'rementally better able to handle
the stress and strain offinishing strong, plus the
holidays, plus family, plus allthe other things that we stack

(09:02):
on top of that.
So, Araya, you get the lastword.

Ariah Daniels (09:05):
Yeah. Excited for this one. I just added some
minutes that I needed to catchup on in the app. So just as a
reminder to anyone who is not inour AM Wellness or AM Coached
app, you just go to your appstore, download AM Coached. It's
an orange and purple icon, andthe invite ID is Zigler.
And as soon as you fill out anyof your information in there,

(09:27):
you'll get a welcome messagefrom coach Jess and a nice fun
accountability chat fromeveryone else inside team
Ziegler. So look forward toseeing everyone there and look
forward to the competition thisyear.

Sam D'Arc (09:36):
Alright, team Ziegler. Catch you out there.
Thanks, everybody. A specialthanks to all who contributed to
this week's podcast, includingAaron Ziegler, Bill Ball, coach
Jess, and Araya Daniels. Untilnext week.
Remember, how are you drivingvision

Jess Polnasek (09:57):
today?